A Brill Calendar: April 30

Juliana at the Rapenburg

Few Leyden citizens in 1574 would have thought the staunch support to the cause of Willem, Prince of Orange would result in a lasting bond between Leyden and Willem’s dynasty.

His Princely reward for opposing occupation by foreign besiegers – the foundation of Holland’s first university – became a cornerstone of this relationship. Willem’s son Maurits, as well as Maurits’s much younger half-brother Frederik Hendrik, (successively Stadholders of a ‘Republic of the Seven United Provinces’ ‘in statu nascendi’), were Leyden alumni with an astute sense for military exploits using mathematics; embodying an innovative ‘Praesidium Libertatis’ boasting academic giants like Simon Stevin, Hugo de Groot, Scaliger and Lipsius.

Some two centuries later, (November 1813 to be exact), the vicissitudes of history saw to it that this princely house acted as monarchs of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The first Prince of Orange to hold this title, King Willem I, re-invigorated the venerable bond with Leyden; although lacking the status of alumnus himself. It would take quite a few generations before an Orange Monarch could boast personal affiliation with the university.

As a matter of fact, it was the Princess of Orange (The Hague, April 30 1909), later inaugurated as Queen Juliana, who was the first royal Orange, studying at Leyden from 1927 until 1931. The son and the grandson of King Willem I – his succeeding namesakes II and III – lacked such a distinction, while Willem III’s boys, both Leyden students, died before they could succeed. And Willem’s only daughter Wilhelmina (1880 -1962) was already crowned at the age of 18. Given Her supreme office, it was undesirable to expose Her Majesty to educational academic protocol ordained by Her subjects. Eventually, Juliana’s first child & daughter, Beatrix (1938) followed in her mother’s footsteps at the Rapenburg Canal, as did her grandson Willem-Alexander (1967), the present Prince of Orange.